Archive for May, 2006

A little birdie has informed me that their spies say Clive Robertson will be filling in for Glenn Wheeler (who is filling in for Stan Zemanek) on 2UE, 2CC and network stations tonight from 8pm-midnight.

Probably not a bad idea considering that good ol’ Glenn has been having some issues with his voice lately.

It is also interesting to note that Stan is one of 2CC’s big ratings attractors and was plastered over the back of a heap of Canberra buses for the ratings season…with three nights (including tonight) left for him in this ratings season to appear on the airwaves, he is yet to appear, instead being replaced by both Clive and Glenn. 2CC’s ratings will be very interesting indeed.

Samuel

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Ballumbir Street and Cooyong Street in Civic have been merged into one big street called Cooyong Street. Apparently this is an effort to eliminate confusion where one road is Barry Drive, Cooyong Street, Ballumbir Street and Coranderrk Street all within the space of a few kilometres.

Here is what it looked like before the change.

Barry Drive turns into Cooyong Street at the intersection with Northbourne Avenue, the red dot marks the point where Cooyong Street becomes Ballumbir Street, and the blue dot represents the point where Ballumbir Street becomes Coranderrk Street. The only change is that the entire area between the red and blue dots is now Cooyong Street.

Ultimately this doesn’t solve much, as Cooyong Street is still wedged in the middle of Barry Drive and Coranderrk Street on the one bit of road. The better thing to do would be to just have Barry Drive as the main road up to Northbourne Avenue, and then have Cooyong Street as the semi-suburban/metro street from Northbourne Avenue to the termination of the road at Parkes Way (not show on this map).

To be perfectly honest with you, I can’t understand why the stretch of road from the blue dot to Parkes Way is Coranderrk Street when Coranderrk Street also comes out of the right of the blue dot, which is a T-intersection between Coranderrk St (white road) and Cooyong/Ballumbir/Coranderrk (yellow road).

If you’re confused, well you’re not the only one. The street signs were recently upgraded in this area and they refer to Ballumbir Street, which is odd considering that the idea for the change has been floating about since 1998 and received support in “public consultation” in December, which seemed to form part of the whole street sign upgrade process.

The ACT Planning and Land Authority has approved the renaming of Ballumbir Street in the City Centre to Cooyong Street.

Chief Planning Executive Neil Savery said that geographically, Ballumbir Street is a continuation of Cooyong Street.

“Travelling along the two, it is logical to interpret them as being the same street,” Mr Savery said.

“The change is about helping people find their way around the City and reducing confusion where street names currently change along the length of a street.”

Mr Savery said the idea to change the name of Ballumbir to Cooyong Street – and also Binara Street to Allara Street – had been identified in 1998 during previous planning studies and, in 2005, the Canberra Central Program revisited the issue due to its street sign replacement project.

“As part of the Government’s Canberra Central Program, street signs throughout the City are being progressively upgraded to make them easier to read.

“It is an important part of the Canberra Central Program to ensure the city is easy to get around in and street signs are one of the fundamental ways we can achieve this.”

The public was consulted in December 2005 about proposals to change the names of Ballumbir and Binara Streets to Cooyong and Allara Streets respectively.

The Ballumbir/Cooyong name change received positive support, but significant objections were raised about the Binara/Allara change.

“Consequently, Binara Street’s name will not change,” Mr Savery said.

“To help people through the transition of Ballumbir Street’s name change, new street signs are being arranged for Cooyong Street that will have a second sign below them containing the words ‘formerly Ballumbir Street’.

“These secondary signs will remain in place for the foreseeable future.”

More Information: George Rummer 02 6205 4715

So they want roads to have one name for their duration, but still have three names for this one road…and I wonder how they went about consulting the public, one can only assume that it was the usual “place an ad in the Canberra Times Classifieds and then go ahead anyway” scenario. (Although if they would like to prove me wrong then I’m all ears).

It is worthwhile noting that the PDF version of the press release (linked above) contains ACT Planning and Land Authority’s “vision”, namely:

Canberra, a city like no other; an ideal city.

Well, one out of two ain’t bad…

Samuel

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I’ve been so busy lately, that when I was reminded about my birthday late last week, I was shocked that it was so close. On Friday, at 11:01PM, I will be 19 human years old (133 dog years). Last year I gave John Kerr a ring on my birthday, that won’t be possible this year, but perhaps I will give Stuart Bocking a call instead.

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That was the title of some very abstract spam, which contained a filler story so vague and impossible to follow that it beat the Gmail spam filter.

all. “Well, you didn’t expect me, eh?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting out of the sledge, splashed with mud on the bridge of his nose, on his cheek, and on his eyebrows, but radiant with health and good spirits. “I’ve come to see you in the first place,” he said, embracing and kissing him, “to have some stand-shooting second, and to sell the forest at Ergushovo third.” “Delightful! What a spring we’re having! How ever did you get along in a sledge?” “In a cart it would have been worse still, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” answered the driver, who knew him. “Well, I’m very, very glad to see you,” said Levin, with a genuine smile of childlike delight. Levin led his friend to the room set apart for visitors, where Stepan Arkadyevitch’s things were carried also–a bag, a gun in a case, a satchel for cigars. Leaving him there to wash and change his clothes, Levin went off to the counting house to speak about the ploughing and clover. Agafea Mihalovna, always very anxious for the credit of the house, met him in the hall with inquiries about dinner. “Do just as you like, only let it be as soon as possible,” he said, and went to the bailiff. When he came back, Stepan Arkadyevitch, washed and combed, came

Unfortunately I have no idea what they were selling, as the embedded image selling whatever it was they were selling wouldn’t load and I was left with that rather baffling story, which had absolutely nothing to do with early birds, second mice, worms or cheese.

Samuel

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Well the underground cabling (previously reported here, here, here, here, and here) has been progressing nicely, as has the construction works on the building that the cables are providing electricity for. ActewAGL now appear to be finished with the cabling holes, and have now dug over them, and removed the fences. I will see about getting some photos soon.

It occured to me that I forgot to mention the email I got from Carol, from Cord Excavations, one of the companies involved in the underground cabling project. This email came in on March 28.

Hey there

Love your photos and running commentary on the Binarra feeder project at Ainslie- keep up the construction digi-dramas!
…few concerns about the roofies though…
Cheers, Karen.

Hmmm, the roofies…
They might want to move a bit back from the edge I think.

Also, on Thursday May 18 I spotted the people from UEA (the company responsible for the horizontal directional drilling in the underground cabling project) working on another project near the corner of Athlon Drive and Drakeford Drive (close to Tuggeranong).

Samuel

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It’s amazing the strange situations that the unconcious mind can come up with. The other night I had a dream that I caught a bus which was bring driven by Clive Robertson, who managed to spend the entire journey talking softly in the way that he does. He was also a but grumpy, he was not happy with the traffic, the doors on the bus, or the car with square wheels in front of us.

One thing which is interesting is that at the time of the dream I had never actually seen Clive Robertson, and upon comparing what I saw in the dream to what he looks like on an ad for his ABC Television show “Agony Aunts”, the only difference is that he was slightly skinnier and had dark hair in my dream.

Incidentally, Clive has been filling in for Stan Zemanek on 2UE, 2CC and a number of other stations for the last few weeks, and considering that Stan is one of 2CC’s big draw cards, it will be interesting to see how 2CC go in the current radio ratings season, which is now into its final week. Clive apparently finished up on 2UE on Friday night, although Stan isn’t due back at work for a few more weeks, and 2UE’s website doesn’t shed any light on who will take over until Stan gets back. Perhaps it is all a joke and Clive will be on-air tonight, but if not, I wouldn’t be surprised if Glenn Wheeler takes over the show again.

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This week the award goes to Brenda Lee, and the feature song is the very moving “As Usual”.

The sun comes up and brings the dawn
As usual
When I awake I’ll find you gone
As usual
But I can’t find a way to let
This crazy heart of mine forget
I pretend you’re still beside me
As usual
Each evening I take a walk
As usual
I make believe that we still talk
As usual
People always stop and stare
I guess they just don’t see you there
Don’t they know you’ll always be right here
As usual
Today I looked into my mirror
As usual
I told myself that you’re still here
As usual
And as I stood there telling lies
The tears began to fill my eyes
Cause I know I’m only fooling myself
As usual

Samuel

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Yesterday afternoon I was returning to work at the end of lunch, and walked the long way back in to the office (as I was a tad early) which involved walking around a corner on to the footpath on one side of Northbourne Avenue at a busy major intersection (this did not involve crossing the road). The vehicles travelling southbound on Northbourne were stopped at a red light, which meant they had plenty of time to see people walking, and potentially recognise them.

Anyway, as I was getting closer to my building, the cars travelling southbound received the green light, and as such, started moving, it was around this time that I started to hear a rather rowdy noise eminating from one of the vehicles…I turned my head to take a look (I was walking in a southbound direction) and could see somebody yelling from one of the cars, as they got even closer and passed me it became apparent that it was actually a tirade of expletives and excessive use of the word “nerd”. It also became apparent that it was more than one person yelling from the car, and that the tirade was directed at me, as one of them pointed directly at me.

You’re probably wondering what makes me think that this was the aforementioned loonies…well quite simply it was a group of young males in a “hotted up” vehicle exhibiting similar behaviour to what the loonies did last time, with similar language.

I have to wonder why they continue this nonsense…after all the last time they were of any concern as a “hot topic” was February, and it is now May. Are they really that far off the planet that they think yelling expletives at me will make me change my mind or give up blogging? Do they really think that the ten or so other people in the area were looking at them favourably? Perhaps they would have liked to take a closer look at the looks they were getting from the other people in the area.

I do have a message for them (although I fear the above text may be too much for their puny minds and they may miss the message as a result), next time around I will be taking a note of your registration plates, a description of your vehicle, the language that you use etc, and I will be pressing charges of harrassment (or whatever the legal term for it is). I will also (more than likely) have a number of witnesses, especially where I was at the time of yesterday’s incident…so if they would like to try it again, they have been warned.

In related loony news, I received an email yesterday afternoon from one “Sam Granleese” (his samgranleese@mac.com address didn’t bounce, so it might be legitimate) who said

Dear Samuel,

As we both share the same name, I thought it was my duty on behalf of other Sam’s and Samuel’s around the world to give you a good talking to.

Are you a mental patient? If so, please start taking your medication again. If not, please unplug your computer, take a deep breath, and call ‘000’ on your phone. Do not attempt to tune into 2CC whilst you wait for the ambulance to arrive, and if possible, please put on your spare straight-jacket which is surely still lying around the house. This would be very considerate.

Many thanks,

Sam

Was Sam having a bad day and just wanted to vent on somebody? Perhaps…I felt like venting on him after the previous loonies, but I refrained from doing that and instead sent him a polite email to which he is still yet to respond.

Sam,
You provide all these solutions, but you don’t identify what they are
there to solve. What exactly are you trying to acheive?

Samuel

In further related loony news, the Queen’s birthday long weekend is coming up, which means that local loonies get to blow things up for a while (and continue doing it when they aren’t allowed to). I’ll have another editorial on that subject in the coming weeks.

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I enjoyed the state of origin match last night, I muted the television and listened to the coverage on 2CC with Andrew Moore, Steve Roach, Daryl Brohman and Tony Megahey, which was quite excellent as usual. The match was brilliant, although it did have a few contentious referee decisions, although it is hard to think of a single NRL match that doesn’t have a contentious decision these days.

The one thing that I’ve been thinking about for a while which I think needs improvement in the NRL, (and I raised this with Andrew and Steve after the match) is that the “modern” game is too fast for one referee. Personally I think we need two referees, one ahead of the play (much like what we have now) watching general play, and another in closer watching the play-the-ball incidents and the other little things that the main ref seems to often miss.

Steve didn’t seem to think that would work as the close ref would get in the way of play, and he is probably right, but we eventually agreed on giving back some power to the touch judges, who used to fill the role of “close ref” before the video referee came in. In my view this would be a good idea, and would improve the game as it would be cleaner, and there would be less controversy. I would give the touch judges the power to pull up play when there is a forward pass or play the ball error (how long has it been since you’ve seen somebody use their feet in the play-the-ball? It’s rare…very rare) or some other problem which needs to be pulled up.

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Thankyou to Leigh Josey of Crikey who replied to my email about TV ratings. Leigh was kind enough to send me a sample of how they run their TV ratings reports, and I now think subscribing to Crikey would be very worthwhile. Certainly I hear enough about a fair bit about the subject of the other Crikey content on talk radio, but when you can get a 2-3 page summary of TV ratings at lunchtime on weekdays, it is very worthwhile.

I will be subscribing soon.

In completely unrelated news, the next episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot is coming tomorrow morning.

Samuel

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For those of you who just want the audio and can’t be bothered reading, click here.

On Tuesday May 16, Nattie and I were embarking on our evening walkies (which was walkies number 85 of the walkies cycle) which took us past the house of Loadedog (for the 5th of 14 times in the walkies cycle). When we walked past all was quiet and we kept on walking, but when we got a further two doors down I saw Loadedog’s ute going past, so Nattie and I turned back and went to say hello to Loadedog. A conversation ensued, one thing led to another (insert further clichés here) and Loadedog invited me on to Insatiable Banalities…that very night, for “one hour between seven and nine”. I, seeking a clarification, pointed out that a two hour window had been nominated, and Loadedog just said to come for an hour sometime between seven and nine.

When I got home I checked a couple things, and then decided that 7:45 would probably be the best time for me to turn up, so I fired off a quick email to Loadedog to inform him (and in my haste sent it to an address which he rarely checks).

At 7:40 (or thereabouts) I left home, and arrived at Loadedog’s place a tad after 7:45, when I got to the front door I could clearly hear Johnboy talking about something…the thought of a nasty verbal stoush with Johnboy about me getting up his nose on The RiotACT made me rethink my appearance for about half a second, in which time I decided that I was already there, and having never met Johnboy in person I shouldn’t be trying to preempt what might happen (I try to preempt what’s in my postal mail sometimes…I get so worked up over what could be in an envelope sometimes), so I rang the doorbell.

The door was answered by Gertrude and Sharkie, who looked mildly surprised to see me (in fact I do recall Gertrude announcing on Insatiable Banalities #30 that she didn’t want me on the show, probably because I was in the midst of the Spin Starts Here fiasco and attracting a lot of torment-style attention), but did direct me in to the Insatiable Banalities studio. This can be vaguely heard at the 25 minute mark.

I entered, and followed studio etiquette of remaining silent until called upon, which did happen a few moments later with some introductions, Johnboy then found a chair for me to sit on, and the show rolled on.

A little bit later on they cut to a song, during which some conversation took place in the studio. Just prior to the return from the break, Johnboy said that he would start off the interview of me, to which I mildly snidely muttered “of course you will”. In hindsight, this may have been partially unjust of me.

Johnboy did lead off the interview, announcing that I was the only person to ever call talkback radio (and more specifically Mike Jeffreys) to complain about him (something which this article on RiotACT proves to be false), and the interview carries on from there with topics such as the name of Samuel’s Persiflage, personal impressions of Samuel’s Blog, personal impressions of me etc etc. Johnboy declared that the people who comment here on this site “are a band of some of the most subtle humourists at work in the Internet”, whilst I consider a lot of you “unfortunately legit”, not only because of your unusual ideas of hidden messages, but because I would prefer it if some of you were actually my own fictional creations, as I would love to be able to take credit for making up some of the things you all seem to write.

The question was asked about whether or not this site is really reflective of my interests, to which I answered “for the most part”, although the show did move on before I could accurately describe that. I do occasionally over emphasise some of my interests (for example I’m not very interested in construction, but I do love taking photos…and having photographic tours. I am interested in the progress of major constructions though), and what you see here doesn’t reflect my entire life. If I wrote a fully public, accurate, diary of my life, you’d all be bored to tears and would never come back, Jim Boots/Loadedog is mostly correct when he says that “you couldn’t have created a character that seemed more ordinary, verging on boring”, a statement which is probably true of most people who go about their lives on a day-to-day basis.

There is also the fact that the more of my life that I put on the Internet, the more personal attacks I seem to get. I did subconciously scale back the amount of “my life” that goes on this site after the Spin Starts Here fisaco, because some people seem to take joy out of making fun of others, and it hurts to be on the receiving end of a campaign like that. I did learn some things from that fiasco, but I wouldn’t want to go through it again, even if I had developed a thicker skin.

The subject of John B1_B5 did, semi-surprisingly, come up, with Johnboy making it clear that he is no fan, although I did explain that I probably have a better and different understanding of John B1_B5 from actually meeting him in person. At one stage Johnboy did try to force a straight answers on the question of whether or not John B1_B5 “shows every sign of someone who’s been sitting at home too long without any human contact”, I would have liked to categorically say “no”, but that would have undoubtedly prompted an all-out character attack against John B1_B5, something which I was already trying to avoid…in the end I think sidestepping that question with an answer which, to somebody who ONLY listens to that question, may come across as being on Johnboy’s side, and then going into logical reasoning as to why I think John B1_B5 is a perfectly fine human being, was the best action to take.

The podcast continued, there was plenty of banter during and between the segments, and eventually it ended. I stuck around for a little while afterwards, and Johnboy seemed like a much nicer person in person, than online, and it would appear that any bitterness which may have occurred have since subsided. I do get the impression that Johnboy could take “shock jock” over to the ABC though.

Anyway, Johnboy has a mini-writeup of Insatiable Banalities #45 on The RiotACT, whilst Loadedog has a more detailed writeup, including the photo you see above, over on his website.

Insatiable Banalities #45 can be downloaded by clicking here, it goes for 1 hour, 3 minutes and 57 seconds, and is 36.5MB. I join the episode at the 25 minute mark, and I think you will all find the interview somewhat interesting…I know I did.

Samuel

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It is with a heavy heart that I must bring you the news that race caller Tony Campbell, the legendary stalwart of horse racing and associated sports in Canberra and surrounds, has died of cancer, aged 58. Tony passed away yesterday morning just before 8am.

I really don’t know what to say, it’s just very hard to believe that he is gone, especially when he looked so well only two months ago (as seen in the picture above).

Oddly enough, Telstra Bigpond Sport covered the sad news fairly well, so I will leave the words to them.

The NSW racing industry is deeply saddened with the news this morning that the ‘Voice of Canberra Racing’ Tony Campbell passed away just before 8am today after a courageous battle with cancer.

Tony Campbell, 58, had been associated with the Canberra Racing Club for 29 years in roles that range from Nomination Clerk to Master of Ceremonies. But, of course, Tony was best known for his role as racecaller for Canberra for 26 years.

During this time Tony called 25 consecutive Black Opals and is well known for his thrilling call of the 1992 Black Opal in which his great mate Frank Cleary’s Clan O’Sullivan became the first locally-trained winner of Canberra’s premier event.

Whilst Tony was well known as one of Canberra racing’s best ambassadors, he was also a passionate Canberra Raiders supporter and was the ground announcer at many of the Raiders home games in the early days of the Raiders.

In a long career Tony regularly called many Sydney races for the ABC and occasionally as on-course broadcaster for the AJC. Tony skills were very diverse, as demonstrated by the fact that he also called harness races including three Miracle Miles at Harold Park.

Tony was also a great community man giving up countless hours to entertain the residents of numerous Canberra nursing homes belting out some of his favourite old tunes on the piano. Tony always made himself available to charity organisations helping with many roles such as MC and was always happy to provide animated phantom calls when requested, and even acted as Santa Claus on the odd occasion.

Chairman of Canberra Racing Club, Howard Powell, said: “Canberra Racing and the Canberra community have lost one of their greatest ambassadors today. We are deeply saddened of Tony’s passing.

“Tony was known as ‘The Voice of Canberra Racing’ for 26 years and not only have we lost a great supporter of racing we have all lost a dear friend. Tony will be sadly missed; his passing will leave a void in our industry”.

While details are yet to be confirmed, it is likely that the funeral service of Tony will be held at St Brigid’s Catholic Church, Cnr Bancroft & Whilshire Streets, Dickson, on Friday, 26th May 2006 commencing at 10am, followed by a private burial, and Queanbeyan Racing Club will host a wake following the service.

At Canberra Racing Club’s meeting this Friday jockeys will wear black armbands and a minutes silence will be observed. The Canberra Racing Club Committee will announce a fitting tribute to honour the contribution that Tony made to Canberra Racing in coming weeks.

I suppose the best thing I can do for Tony is to award him with a Samuel Salute, quite possibly the greatest honour I can bestow on someone.